Monday, April 11 - Friday, April 15

Friday

1. Banned book essay is due. No rubric = no feedback, just a grade.
2. Establish new clock partners.
3. We will discuss epic, ode and elegy today and Monday.
4. Beowulf! Tidy-up the discussion of epic poetry and its form, features, purpose and audience. Review: Old English, Middle English, Modern English
5. Use Spark notes or Schmoop to check how well your assigned poem meets the criteria for an epic. Report to back to the class.
   1. The Epic of Gilgamesh
   2. The Illiad
   3. The Odyssey
   4. King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
   5. Dante’s Inferno
   6. The Aeneid
   7. Paradise Lost
6. Epic features: Six Elements Of The Epic:
   1) Plot centers around a Hero of Unbelievable Stature.  The epic hero completes what everyone only attempts.  In ancient epics, the hero often is either partially divine or at least protected by a god or God.
   2) Involves deeds of superhuman strength and valor. Accomplish feats no real human could.
   3) Vast Setting. The action spans not only geographical but also often cosmological space: across land, sea, into the underworld, or thru space or time etc.
   4) Involves supernatural and-or otherworldly forces. Gods, demons, angels, time/space travel, cheating death etc.
   5) Sustained elevation of style. Overwritten. Overly formal, highly stylized (poetry, lyricism (singing), exaggeration)
   6) Poet remains objective and omniscient.  The narrator sees and knows all and presents all perspectives. The Epic of Gilgamesh
   Epic Origins:  Generally, epics are also mythologized histories.
   1) A conglomeration of pre-existing stories and characters.
   2) Often of oral origin.
   3) At least loosely based around historical or quasi-historical characters or events or characters.
   
   4) Set in a mythologized distant time, traditionally in the past.
   
7. Read "Ode to my Socks' focusing on form, features, purpose and audience in the poem. Write an ode and put it into the ode competition. 

Thursday

1. Return stand alone text response to the poem “Wordsmith”. Mark multiple choice. What was done well. What you need to improve on.
2. Establish new clock partners
3. We will discuss epitaph, epigram, epic, ode and elegy today and tomorrow.
4. Guess the epitaph then write your own: to commemorate your high school career or your life.
   
5. Four Tips for Writing an Epitaph:
   Epitaphs are among the oldest examples of writing in the world, and the form remains popular today. As long as we honor our dead, epitaphs will always be an important way to celebrate their lives. When writing your epitaph, keep in mind that:
   1)    Epitaphs are short and concise.
   2)    They convey a strong feeling.
   3)    Often, someone is speaking in the first person (a relative, a friend; the deceased).
   4)    The writer should think about who is being addressed (for example, a passerby).
6. Recipe card epigrams. Oscar Wilde.
7. Beowulf!

Wednesday
Library for last work block during class time: Banned Book essay.
Tuesday

1. Thursday - Quiz on non-fiction terms and devices.
2. Wednesday’s class to work on Banned Book essay: Library laptops are booked so sit at the tables in the library. Essay is due this Friday.
3. Begin poetry. Practice section from Provincial Exam. Look over evaluation rubric. Score some sample responses. Poem “ The Dumka: https://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/exams/exemplars/en_standalone/Question_and_Scoring_Guide.pdf. Student samples: http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/exams/exemplars/en_standalone/en12-stand-alone-text.pdf  Look at a typical markers’ report about the exam and at an English 12 Examination Report to Schools: http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/exams/pdfs/1208en_rt.pdf
4. Write practice exam question about the poem "Wordsmith."

Monday

1. Wednesday’s class to work on essay?
2. Suggestion: don’t leave progress reports in your folders.
3. Complete Post-it exercise - identifying non-fiction terms.
4. Game for non-fiction terms.